Institutional Partner Grant Awards:
The National Building Museum (NBM)
National Building Museum’s Women of Architecture series takes place every March to celebrate Women’s History Month.
- (2011) Architecture and Context, a presentation of recent work by Annabelle Selldorf, FAIA, founder and principal of Selldorf Architects.
- (2010) Role Models and Paradigm Shift: Frank, Paul, Marcel and Me, a presentation of recent work by Toshiko Mori, FAIA, founder and principal of Toshiko Mori Architect.
- (2009) Transforming Skylines and Communities, a presentation of recent work by Jeanne Gang, FAIA, founder and principal
of Studio Gang Architects. Participant Jeanne Gang (Studio Gang Architects) was introduced by Beverly Willis, FAIA (BWAF). - (2008) Challenging the Paradigm: A Conversation with Three Women Deans of Architecture. Key participants included program Moderator Wanda Bubriski, BWAF, Frances Bronet, University of Oregon, Donna Robertson, Illinois Institute of Technology, and Karen Van Lengen, University of Virginia.
- (2007) Histories, Herstories: Reappraising the Legacy of American Architecture. Key participants included program Moderator Wanda Bubriski, BWAF, Cynthia Hammond, Concordia University, Susan Piedmont-Palladino, Curator, NBM/Virginia Tech., and Gwendolyn Wright, Columbia University.
- (2006) Three Tracks to Success: the work of Suman Sorg, FAIA—Joan Goody, FAIA—Carol Ross Barney, FAIA
Society of Architectural Historians (SAH)
The BWAF Travel Fellowship is a $1,500 award to a female or male applicant whose paper presents a topic pursuant to the mission of BWAF. The purpose of the Fellowship is to enable the recipient to travel to the ACSA Annual Meeting in order to present his/her paper.
- Elizabeth Birmingham (2011) Associate Professor of English, North Dakota State University, Feminist Scholarship and Disciplinary Discourse: A Case Study of Marion Mahony Griffin.
- Mary Pepchinski (2010), Professor of Architectural Design and Theory, School of Applied Sciences, Dresden, Gender, Hard Times, and the End of Spectacle? Berlin’s Topography of Terror, 1983-2010. Chicago, IL.
- Emily Bills (2009), Woodbury University, Los Angeles, Esther McCoy and the Contextualization of LA Architecture. Pasadena, CA.
- Ernestina Osorio (2008), University of California, Los Angeles, Women’s Promotion of Modern Mexican Architecture in Transnational Visual and Print Media. Cincinnati, OH.
- Juliette Peers (2007), RMIT University, Melbourne, Tool Fantasy and Document? Playing with Architectural Images and Identities Through Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Dollhouses. Pittsburg, PA.
- Despina Statigakos (2006), Harvard University, The Architect and the Bluestocking: Feminist Networks in Fin-de-Siècle Berlin. Savannah, GA.
- Ines Zalduendo (2005), Frances Loeb Library, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Jacqueline Tyrwhitt’s Correspondence Courses: Town Planning in the Trenches. Vancouver, BC.
The BWAF Dissertation Fellowship of the Society of Architectural Historians was awarded to one doctoral student engaged in the preparation of a PhD dissertation that focuses on the history of women’s contributions to the production of architecture prior to 1980.
- Avigail Sachs (2007), PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, Research for Architecture: Building a Discipline and Modernizing the Profession, 1946-1959.
Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA)
- Women’s Leadership Council (2008), a newly established working group of the membership of ACSA.
- Johanna Hays (2007), PhD candidate at Auburn University, inaugural Travel Fellowship to present The First American Woman Architect—Louise Blanchard Bethune: An American Dream.
Columbia University (2005) received a grant for the open seminar series “Gender and Modern Architecture.”
The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) (2006) will produce Redressing the Balance: Rediscovering the Work of Two Landscape Architecture Pioneers—Ruth Shellhorn and Carol Johnson, both practitioners noted for the civic and public spaces they created in post-war America. The two histories will be added to TCLF’s online resource, Legends in Landscape Oral History Series.
The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum’s (2009) Sackler Center for Art Education received a grant to co-present with BWAF The Architecture of Writing: Wright, Women & Narrative as part of the Guggenheim’s 50th anniversary celebration.
Student Association for Women in Architecture (SAWA) (2007) at the School of Architecture, Notre Dame University, founded and headed by Maureen Ponto, received a grant to establish the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation Lectures, which will highlight the careers and contributions of eminent women practitioners active during the mid-twentieth century.
University of California, Berkeley (2006), Regional Oral History Office, received a grant for a video-oral history series on the life and work of Beverly Willis, Architect.
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Libraries (2005) received a grant for curatorial support of recent acquisitions of American architects in the International Archive of Women Architects.
Individual BWAF Fellowships and Travel Grants:
Mary Anne Alabanza Akers (2005), Associate Professor, College of Environmental Design at the University of Georgia, addresses issues of both gender and race in Remembering Our Sisters: A Story of African American Women Who Shaped our Environments (1950-1980), a study documenting the professional lives and built contributions of an overlooked and underrepresented group within the profession of architecture.
Jason Cohn (2006), Producer and Writer, Quest Productions, researched the life and work of Ray (Kaiser) Eames, partner in the legendary design team, focusing on issues of artistic collaboration. The results of the research were incorporated into The Creative Lives of Charles & Ray, a 90-minute documentary intended for national primetime broadcast on American public television, theatrical and international distribution.
Kelly Comras (2007), Landscape Architect and Historian, received a grant for The Landscape Legacy of Ruth Patricia Shellhorn. Comras introduces the life and work of Ruth Shellhorn, one of the leading practitioners who shaped the modernist landscape of southern California.
Ronit Eisenbach (2008), Visiting Associate Professor in Architecture, Planning, & Preservation, University of Maryland, and Terri Sarris, Filmmaker, Senior Lecturer, University of Michigan, produced a pilot film for a documentary on the Michigan designer, Ruth Adler Schnee (b. 1923). The feature traces the development of Schnee’s vibrant textile designs against a biographical backdrop that shifted from Nazi Germany to midwestern America. The film follows Schnee’s early association with America’s pre-eminent designers through to the present where she continues as an advocate for the promotion and preservation of Detroit’s modernist heritage.
Gabrielle Esperdy (2005/2006), Assistant Professor, School of Architecture at New Jersey Institute of Technology, investigates “The Architectress” in the United States: Perceptions and Realities of Women in Practice since World War II, a study of the cultural attitudes towards women in practice alongside statistical data on women in practice during the second half of the twentieth century.
Alexis Denise Gregory (2006), Architect, investigated the Obstacles to Professional Achievement Affecting Women in Architecture in South Carolina through a survey and focus group interview designed to identify the causes for the high attrition rates of women in architecture in South Carolina.
Cynthia Hammond (2005), Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Architecture, McGill University, investigates Catherine Bauer: The Interior of Modernism (1905-1964), on how Bauer’s broad themes of pedagogical concern relate to her views on the architectural interior, in preparation for an essay included in the anthology, Crafting Space: Architecture, Interiors and Decoration, (Alfoldy and Helland, eds.,) by Ashgate Press.
Jane King Hession (2008), an architectural historian, produced Lisl Close: A Life in Modern Architecture, a monograph on the life of Elizabeth Scheu Close, FAIA (b. 1912). Close was Minnesota’s first female modern architect and the only woman to receive AIA Minnesota’s Gold Medal. Her life-long commitment to the design of practical, functional modern houses is a major theme of the book.
Dorothée Imbert (2005), Associate Professor and Director, Master in Landscape Architecture Programs, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, prepared a monograph on Geraldine Knight Scott (1909-1989), landscape architect, founding member of the Telesis group, housing and planning advocate, and educator at the University of California, Berkeley, published within the series Berkeley/Design/Books dedicated to the dissemination of designers featured in the Environmental Design Archives at Berkeley.
Linda Ingram (2008), an independent scholar, continues her work with the archives of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) at the national headquarters in Washington, D.C. Expanding on her previous project, (awarded in 2007 to the American Institute of Architects,) that listed all female members of the AIA up to 1980, Ingram developed biographical and career narratives based on the records of the 150 women elected Fellows of The American Institute of Architects from 1955 to 2000.
Alison Isenberg (2005/2008), Associate Professor, Department of History at Rutgers University, received a grant in 2005 to explore in Urbanism Unclothed: Women and Urban Design in the Mid-20th Century, the often hidden impact of women in the design professions, and on urban form. Besides architecture, she considers the interior/exterior furnishings industries; public art; historic preservation; design theory; architectural criticism; public commissions; and commercial leasing. Expanding the conception of what constituted urban design during the 1950s-1970s, “Urbanism Unclothed” revises our understanding of what made American cities magnetic, creative places during years of supposed decline. In 2008, Ms. Isenberg received a grant to write Urban Design Un-clothed: Collaborative Landscapes and the Modernist Turn Toward Preservation in the 1960s, which explores the era’s collaborations among design professionals and their allied fields in public art, graphics, property management and public relations. The book focuses on the gender-based features of these collaborations, and how they intersected with pressing questions of modernism, historicism, feminism, scale, and open space, as urban design emerged from the rubble of urban renewal.
Peter Laurence (2006), Doctoral Candidate, Ph.D. Program in Architecture, University of Pennsylvania, examines in A Vital Science: Jane Jacobs’ Ecology of Cities, a history and intellectual biography of the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), how Jacobs’ seminal writings dramatically and irrevocably changed the ways architects, planners, and urban designers look at cities.
Christopher MacDonald (2006), Professor, School of Architecture, the University of British Columbia, with Kevin Alter, Associate Professor, School of Architecture, the University of Texas at Austin, prepared Judith Chafee: Unreconstructed Modern, a monograph on the Tucson architect Judith Chafee (1933-1998). The monograph focuses on the eloquent form of regional modernism as embodied in the residences designed by Chafee from 1975 to 1984, and was published by the Center for American Architecture and Design at the University of Texas at Austin.
Kristin M. Maki (2006), Doctoral Candidate, College of Architecture and Urban Studies, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, examines in Apprentice to Architect: launching the careers of Eleanore Pettersen and Lois Davidson Gottlieb at Taliesin, 1941-1949, the role of architectural apprenticeship with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin, in shaping architectural careers for women.
Barbara Mobarak (2007), AIA, Principal, Planning & Design Research Group, Lecturer, Institute for Architecture and Planning at Morgan State University, received a grant to produce an annotated bibliography and research source guide on Norma Sklarek, the first African American woman member and fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
Susan Morgan (2008), writer and contributing editor at Metropolitan Home, continued her research and writing for a monograph on Esther McCoy (1904-1989), the preeminent architectural writer on 20th-century American modernism. Entitled Sympathetic Seeing: Esther McCoy and the Heart of American Modernist Design, it will be the first book to focus on McCoy’s landmark work.
Anne Nicklin (2008), Sustainability Consultant and member of the faculty at Boston Architectural College, researched the work of Elizabeth Wood (1899-1993), founding Executive Secretary of the Chicago Housing Authority. This study focuses on Wood’s visionary contributions—in both policy and practice—to modern public housing in Chicago and beyond.
Monica Penick (2005), Doctoral Candidate, School of Architecture, University of Texas at Austin, examines in Modernism and the Postwar House: Elizabeth Gordon, House Beautiful and the Pace Setter House Program (1947-1965), the development of “livable” modernism as influenced by architectural critic, arbiter of taste, and magazine editor, Elizabeth Gordon.
Terri Sarris (2008), Filmmaker, Senior Lecturer, University of Michigan, and Ronit Eisenbach, Visiting Associate Professor in Architecture, Planning, & Preservation, University of Maryland, produced a pilot film for a documentary on the Michigan designer, Ruth Adler Schnee (b. 1923). The feature traces the development of Schnee’s vibrant textile designs against a biographical backdrop that shifted from Nazi Germany to Midwestern America. The film follows Schnee’s early association with America’s pre-eminent designers through to the present where she continues as an advocate for the promotion and preservation of Detroit’s modernist heritage.
Ellen Shoshkes (2007/2008), Architect and Planner, and Adjunct Associate Professor, Portland State University, continues work on her monograph concerning the town planner, editor, and educator, Jacqueline Tyrwhitt (1905-1983). Based on research conducted with support from a BWAF Fellowship in 2007, and entitled Hidden Voice: the Contribution of Jacqueline Tyrwhitt to the Origins and Evolution of Urban Design in America, 1945-1976, the book examines the contributions and current relevance of Tyrwhitt’s career.
Bobbye Tigerman (2006), Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, was awarded a travel grant for the paper, ‘I am Not a Decorator’: Florence Knolls Construction of Professional Identity, which she delivered at the Dorich House Annual Conference sponsored by the Modern Interiors Research Centre at Kingston University, UK.
Thaisa Way (2007), Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Washington, Seattle, received a grant towards a forthcoming monograph, Unbounded Practices: Women, Landscape Architecture and Early Twentieth Century Design, to be published by the University of Virginia Press. The text emphasizes how women’s engagement in the American landscape profession—from its origins through modernism—has greatly shaped both the landscape and the profession.
Alexandra Griffith Winton (2005), Design Historian, reintroduces the life, work and influence of mid-century textile designer, Dorothy Liebes, in the monograph Design, Color, Texture: Dorothy Liebes and the Textiles of American Modernism, to be published in 2006 by Princeton Architectural Press.
Gwendolyn Wright (2005), Professor, School of Architecture, Columbia University, explores in “Modern Man,” Modern Women, and Modern Architectures in the United States, how women architects, reformers, journalists, and political activists have offered significant alternative visions that justly belong to the modernist legacy, supporting a strain of argument in her forthcoming Modern Architectures in History: The United States, part of a series to be published in 2006 by Reaktion Press.
Catherine Zipf (2007), Assistant Professor, Department of Cultural and Historic Preservation, Salve Regina University, received a grant to implement the planning phases for the first retrospective on Chloethiel Woodard Smith, the prolific Washington-based architect active from the 1950s to the 1980s.
